Rick Tocchet highlights two players who surprised in their first appearance

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Cooper Godin
September 26, 2024 (10:36)

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Vancouver Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet gave his thoughts following Wednesday's OT win over the Calgary Flames.

The Vancouver Canucks headed to Abbotsford on Wednesday to host the Calgary Flames for their second game of the preseason and the team showed plenty of fight as they battled back to tie the game with less than 20 second remaining and won the game in overtime thanks to Jake DeBrusk.

After the game, Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet met with the media and gave his thoughts on the team's effort to fight back for a 4-3 overtime win against the Flames and had some praise for a number of players including Kiefer Sherwood, Phillip Di Giuseppe and Daniel Sprong, who scored a highlight reel goal to tie the game late.

"Yeah, I thought there was some good individual efforts from some guys. Like Sherwood, Di Giuseppe, they came into camp in really good shape and you can tell. they pushed the pace and that's what we're looking for." Tocchet said.

When talking about Sprong, he added, "Yeah, he's got the knack for doing that stuff, he can skate. So there's a lot of things we can work with him to really make him complete, but yeah that's a hell of a goal obviously."

The Canucks still have four preseason games to go over the next eight days, so the coaching staff and management have some big decisions to make here before opening night. The defensive group is all but confirmed, it's on forward where things get interesting with a number of players vying for a spot on the Canucks' bottom six and even Jonathan Lekkerimaki, who's pushing to make the opening night roster.

Vancouver will be back in action tomorrow night as they head to Seattle's Climate Pledge Arena to take on the Kraken. Puck drop is set for 7 pm PT.